He was dismissed because he could not be impartial, not because he was gay. This was about the art of jury selection, not gay rights. If he was dismissed from a trial that had nothing to do with protesters being arrested during a demonstration about gays, then that would be wrong.

Attorney’s Office Excluded Gay Jurors in Equality 9 Trial

"the San Diego City Attorney’s office challenged one prospective juror after he acknowledged he was gay and dismissed another gay man from the jury pool."

So much for liberty and JUSTICE for ALL in America.

Well, DUO, the first sentence of your article notes that a judge ordered a new trial for the “Equality 9” after the prosecutor’s exclusion of a single juror. What more “liberty and justice” for someone do you ask for in this case?

It is a crude falsehood to claim that “it is legal to discriminate against LGBT jurors.” The OP article itself is about a case in which a judge ordered a new trial merely because the prosecutor excluded a single juror who apparently stated that he “was gay”.

The Queerty article notes Dibble’s bill in Minnesota, but does not quote it. The article then informs us that “gays and lesbians were excluded from Dan White’s trial for the murders of Harvey Milk and George Moscone”. This trial was at a time when people were excluded from juries on the basis of race and gender.

Let us quote the first paragraph of J.E.B. v. Alabama (1994), which is one of the progeny of Batson v. Kentucky (1986):

In Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79 (1986), this Court held that the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment governs the exercise of peremptory challenges by a prosecutor in a criminal trial. The Court explained that, although a defendant has "no right to a `petit jury composed in whole or in part of persons of his own race,'" id., at 85, quoting Strauder v. West Virginia, 100 U.S. 303, 305 (1880), the "defendant does have the right to be tried by a jury whose members are selected pursuant to nondiscriminatory criteria." Id., at 85-86. Since Batson, we have reaffirmed repeatedly our commitment to jury selection procedures that are fair and nondiscriminatory. We have recognized that, whether the trial is criminal or civil, potential jurors, as well as litigants, have an equal protection right to jury selection procedures that are free from state-sponsored group stereotypes rooted in, and reflective of, historical prejudice. See Powers v. Ohio, 499 U.S. 400 (1991); Edmonson v. Leesville Concrete Co., 500 U.S. 614 (1991); Georgia v. McCollum, 505 U.S. ___ (1992).

In the past 20 years has there been a case that was, contrary to this decision, “discriminatory” against “gays and lesbians”? I do not know of one. Apparently Dibble’s bill is not intended to solve any actual problem.

J.E.B. is particularly relevant here in that it extends the Batson holding to the issue of sex discrimination; at least one federal court has found discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation to be related to sex discrimination.

There is no law or judicial ruling that either mandates or allows a discriminatory voir dire process. The claim that “it is legal to discriminate against LGBT jurors” is obviously made in ignorance of case law.

He was dismissed because he could not be impartial, not because he was gay. This was about the art of jury selection, not gay rights. If he was dismissed from a trial that had nothing to do with protesters being arrested during a demonstration about gays, then that would be wrong.

At least that what I think it was about.

I agree with that. This is not the issue about the gay but the art of jury selection.

He was dismissed because he could not be impartial, not because he was gay. This was about the art of jury selection, not gay rights. If he was dismissed from a trial that had nothing to do with protesters being arrested during a demonstration about gays, then that would be wrong.

At least that what I think it was about.

I agree with that. This is not the issue about the gay but the art of jury selection.

Yeah, but if you think about it for a bit.... it's still not right.

Dave - Just a Man in the Mountains.

There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there always has been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge. Isaac Asimov

Should be a completely asexual jury. Hook the jury pool up to sensors and only those who react to neither gay nor straight porn can serve.

And here I thought the ultimate was a trial by a jury of one's peers. Not too many asexual folk out there these days.

If gays can't be unbiased, why assume straights can be?

I am sure straights can't, or maybe pretend straights, someone is making all these laws against gay rights, who could that be?????

A tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to religion. Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler whom they consider god-fearing and pious. On the other hand, they do less easily move against him, believing that he has the gods on his side. AristotleNever discourage anyone...who continually makes progress, no matter how slow. Plato.."A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives" Jackie Robinson